1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a carbon membrane structure and a method for producing the same. More specifically, the present invention relates to a carbon membrane structure showing very excellent separation performance by a carbon membrane and a method for producing the same.
2. Description of Related Art
Membrane separation technology is used in the food and pharmaceutical field and the water treatment field from the viewpoints of energy saving and environmental load reduction. In recent years, there has been conducted separation of a certain component from a mixture to change the composition of the mixture as represented by the application of membrane separation technology in production of ethanol using biomass, that is, membrane separation technology of water and ethanol.
As a membrane used for such membrane separation technology, a carbon membrane can be mentioned for example. A carbon membrane is used as, for example, a structure of a carbon membrane (hereinbelow referred to as a “carbon membrane structure”) disposed on a surface of a porous substrate (e.g., see Patent Document 1 to 4). As a porous substrate used for such a carbon membrane structure, there is used, for example, a monolith-shaped substrate where a plurality of cells extending from one end face to the other end face and functioning as fluid passages are formed.
In such a monolith-shaped substrate, from the viewpoint of increasing the area ratio of the carbon membrane to the capacity of the substrate, the shape has conventionally been formed so that the distance between adjacent cells is as short as possible.